


Aiónios

by drinkbloodlikewine, whiskeyandspite



Series: Aiónios [5]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Afterlife, Angst, Established Relationship, Fluff, Longing, M/M, Nostalgia, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-14
Updated: 2015-06-28
Packaged: 2018-04-04 05:42:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4127235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drinkbloodlikewine/pseuds/drinkbloodlikewine, https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiskeyandspite/pseuds/whiskeyandspite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“There is nothing that could keep me from him,” Hannibal tells his patron. “And if you will not help me, then I will help myself.”</i>
</p><p>The end of the saga, all from <a href="http://dweeby.tumblr.com/">Dweeby's</a> amazing prompt. When we started with <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/2526059">Ero̱totropía</a> we could not have envisioned it would become so much more. Thank you, always!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WendigoDreaming](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WendigoDreaming/gifts).



> Beta'd by the marvelous [Noodle](http://noodletheelephant.tumblr.com)!

The hall is vast. Overhead the ceiling arches, interlocking like branches grown close enough together to block out the sun. The walls layer planks of wood too long to come from any tree that Hannibal could imagine seeing, let alone felling and planing flat. Beneath his feet, packed soil, hot like summer and yet hardly uncomfortable beneath his sandals.

There is no sound but the panting of Yelp at his side, and Hannibal seeks the dog with spread fingers, allowing them to be licked.

It is a comfort, however bittersweet.

“I seek He who sees all,” Hannibal calls out. He waits for an echo that never comes, his words swallowed into the dark, empty depths as if smothered beneath a blanket. Clearing his throat, he turns in a slow circle, each of the four walls seeming too far away to ever reach.

“World-seer,” he says again, snapping his words as he would towards his men on the field of battle. “I have known you my whole life through, and never forgotten. Have you forgotten me?”

As if beneath water, the wall at Hannibal’s fore glimmers white. He tries to focus on it, or the one beside it red as blood. Black behind him, green to his left, and Hannibal holds breath that he needs no longer take. Tears pull at him, an unfamiliar sensation, overcome by the presence that suddenly occupies the holy hall in which he stands.

He has known this feeling few enough times - when as a child, he was taken to the four-faced idol that lived in a temple of trees in the darkest woods. When as a man, he saw the offspring of two black horses born white as snow.

“ _Svetovid_ ,” Hannibal calls out. “I have sacrificed. I have fought. I have lived, as you would have me live, in honor and with mind towards past and future. Please,” he asks, swallowing hard when his voice cracks. “I need your sight now.”

A wind whispers past his ears that stirs neither hair nor chiton, and spills goosebumps like cold rain down his spine. His gods have never spoken to him, not in visitations or words like the Greeks and their capricious deities. Their ways are subtler, manipulations of the worlds that they occupy, branches of a great tree that from crown to roots contains all things known to man and gods and spirits.

“I need know if he is safe,” Hannibal asks. “You know him, too, as you know me. He wears your horse upon his skin and swore his being to us both. He was there, when you sent sign to us in the white foal. It was he who named the foal for you, _Beli_.”

Yelp drops to his haunches, leaning heavy against Hannibal’s thighs and wheezing before slipping lower to lay at the man’s feet. He is as heavy and real and warm as he was in the last world, and Hannibal wonders at the silly creature’s loyalty, no more willing to let Hannibal pass through worlds alone than he was to let him leave the house for war.

A sudden susurrus of long grasses fills Hannibal’s ears. He looks towards the white wall, facing forward, and sees shadows pass across it like those cast by clouds before the sun. No, not like that - like the shadows of men, passing aimless back and forth, darker still than the lightless world in which they reside.

“What is this?” Hannibal asks. “Show me Will. Show me the one to whom I swore –”

 _He is there_ , Hannibal knows, as his head fills with a voice that is not his own.

And so he is. Dark curls of hair, eyes of endless Aegean blue, and down his side a spill of blood dried to brown. Among the shades, Will stands motionless and pale, pressing a hand to his side and studying it. The wound no longer bleeds.

It has bled enough.

“No,” declares Hannibal. “This is wrong. I saw him pull the arrow free, I saw –”

 _He followed you_ , Hannibal knows, and the sound he makes is less man than animal, pained and wild with grief. _As you passed, so did he, and it was you on whom his eyes held last before they closed._

Yelp stirs back to his feet as Hannibal sinks to his knees. He has not mourned himself, but only the distance between them. His pain staunched only from the knowledge that Will would live and love again, and so unleashed his ribs crack with a howl that pours forth in rage that he was not there.

That he could not protect him.

That Will died alone, without arms around his shoulders and gentle whispers to ease him through.

Hands against the sun-warmed soil, Hannibal lifts his eyes to the images again but finds his own tears blur the vision now, wiped quickly and replenished by every shortened breath that pushes them from him. Will turns, every direction, and his brow furrows.

He is lost.

He is afraid.

He is alone, and Hannibal surges to his feet once more.

“Where?” he gasps. “Where is this place? Why is he not here? He _swore_ –”

_He had no grounds on which to make his oath to other gods._

“No,” snarls Hannibal. “No, I dedicated him to _you_ , he wears your mark, he sought you, _Svetovid_ , for our farm and for our wars, he sought _Perun_ in his storms and _Jarilo_ during harvest –”

 _His life was given long before to the gods of his people,_ bogatyr.

“Is he with _Veles_ then? Tell me where to go and I will prove what I know is true.”

Will’s shoulders curl on a breath that shakes him, once, a mist gathering in the air. Hannibal moves towards the wall but finds he cannot reach it – however nearer he moves it remains at the same distance. Yelp wheezes, a rasping whine of familiarity for the boy who raised him, and suddenly, Hannibal has no mind for gods, no mind for the respect that carried him in beseeching. He has no care for their halls or the fertile fields where he might have rested after a life well-lived, and the sudden, wild thought takes him that he would burn it all to the ground, had he even a single ember.

 _You do not belong in the underworld any more than the boy belongs here. You have earned your peace. You have died well. You reside now in the highest branches to serve as_ bogatyr _to the gods._

“Damn the gods,” Hannibal spits. “I do not want your peace.”

The rewards that Hannibal spent a lifetime seeking now seem as nothing more than punishment. Wiling away an endless forever tending fields that always grow, sunlit days in which he will forget, bit by bit, the only one that has ever mattered so much to him. Already he has felt the soporific pull of it all and he will not lose Will to theological technicalities; he will not relinquish so readily the way Will’s lips parted against his own and how little fingers traced his tattoos and how Will’s whispers were sweeter to him than any wine.

No.

If Will is lost, then Hannibal will find him.

_You would reject your rewards and your duty for the underworld?_

The question rings curious, almost amused, and Hannibal watches as Will fades suddenly from before him. The hall seems to brighten, flickering lights where there is no fire, and Hannibal pats his legs for Yelp to follow, seeking out the long walk to the door through which he came. He can hear whispers, like the gossiping at a symposium, and he ignores them just as readily.

“There is nothing that could keep me from him,” Hannibal tells his patron. “And if you will not help me, then I will help myself.”

\---

When one has become ageless, and seen the scope of the cosmos grown wide from the void, there is little reason to grasp at such mortal concerns as time and distance. The shiver of leaves and creak of bark from the Great Tree is ever-present, a reminder of the worlds held supported in its branches. Hannibal pauses, to listen to its immortal groan, and eases Yelp along with a pat against furry haunches.

He was not cremated with any belongings. He was not buried in his armor. He knows this, because there is little with him but his clothes and Yelp, and for this, at least, Hannibal’s gratitude is profound. He watches as the enormous dog bounds ahead through the field in which they woke, flushing game birds from the grasses.

“Will you catch them?” Hannibal asks, as Yelp skids to a halt and huffs at him. “I thought not.”

It is a curious thing, the warriors at their training even now. Hannibal passes by them and greets them in Neuri, as they slow the clatter of swords and shields to return the sentiment in their own muddled offshoot of his language. They watch him go, in his curious clothing, a chiton rather than pants, his scarlet chlamys rather than a tunic, and Hannibal could laugh for the irony of it all. Even in the afterlife, he is unlike his brethren. Even in the halls of the slain, they are different.

It hardly matters now.

Yelp leads the way, through field and forest, circling back to seek affection before racing off again to pick warily through swift-moving rivers and past waterfalls so high that Hannibal cannot see their start. Hannibal follows, aware innately that while he does not know the way to navigate from world to world and scale down the tree, animals have always had a profound and wondrous sense for home.

And Will is as much a home for Yelp as he is for Hannibal.

“I should have known better than to harbor faith in flighty gods,” Hannibal remarks, watching as Yelp trots ahead, and wheezes in pronouncement. “They are far less trustworthy than hounds.”

It has been days of walking. It has been years. He left _Svetovid_ ’s hall that morning. He left it a lifetime ago. Neither tire, now, though both are seemingly always exhausted. Neither need to eat, though they do when a hare or a bush of berries presents itself to them. Gone are the blinding-bright beaches of Greece, her white rocks and olive trees. Gone are the cities bustling and alive. He journeys now through realms the likes of which he has not seen since he was taken captive, forests so dense one must turn sideways to pass between the trees within, mountains so tall that one nearly falls backwards in seeking out their black and cragged peaks. There are lands that are unfamiliar in any way to Hannibal, with spires that spit fire oozing scarlet and flinging flame, earth that bubbles grey and foul-smelling and waters that rise steaming into the air. He keeps Yelp close to him, here, all too aware that though they exist someplace other than time and space as they once understood it, they are not immortal.

And truly, there are fates worse than death.

They encounter few other world-walkers, and if the inhabitants of these places - gods and giants and wights - notice them, they pay them little mind. Their journey is not meant for any but themselves. They do not pass through seeking gold or knowledge or fame, and so there is nothing for them to barter for or with. Once, at a crossroads, Hannibal is stopped by a curious and beautiful woman, carrying a bucket of milk. She asks what he’s looking for, and he tells her only that he seeks his love. Whatever truth she sees in his expression is enough that she offers only a coy smile in return.

Hannibal does not watch her go, but can’t help a smile at the cow’s tail twitching long beneath her skirts when she passes by.

His sandaled feet slip against black rock, made slick with mist and surf, and he skids down sideways to a beach whose sand is dark as night. The sky and sea are grey as iron and just as cold, but Yelp barrels towards the water anyway, hurtling himself gleefully into the waves. It is hardly the warm, placid waters of Greece - the sound of the tide rattling over sand and volcanic pebbles is a constant clattering din, and at Hannibal’s other side is unscalable walls of black rock, columnar forms that seem carved as if by hand.

He pulls his chlamys tighter around his shoulders, and wonders why he could not have died in winter and been burned in his himation, too.

It is only thoughts of Will that stir his heart to beating again, and ease the dampness from between his bones. His boy at rest beneath too many dogs, sprawled lanky-limbed and lazy as a cat in the morning sun. His boy curving closer beneath Hannibal’s hands, coiling to seek contact between them. His boy astride his erastes beneath, tossing his hair like a petulant horse and parting his lips with wanton want on his sigh.

His Will, beautiful and strong, made weak by a Persian arrow.

His beloved, funny and bright, brought silent by his grief.

His peacemaker, gentle and loving, pouring his heart into the soil until there is nothing left.

Yelp stops his frolick and it is only then that Hannibal recognizes the sound he has made as his own. He did not want this for Will, and the guilt makes every heavy step through wet sand that much slower. Will was meant to survive this. He was meant to live, to find another and marry, to have children and fill the farm with life and laughter again and keep Hannibal’s memory - the memory of an entire people - alive through them.

The color has faded, from the red of Hannibal’s robes to the mottled marks on Yelp. They are as grey and black now as the beach that seems insurmountable. Endless and bleak, it spreads on forward and back and but for the caves set low into the mountainous wall beside them, there is nothing. There is no one.

It is foolishness, to imagine that one can cross from one cosmos to another.

It is foolishness, to think that Will’s gods would allow Hannibal in any more than his allowed Will.

There are, in truth, few moments in Hannibal’s life that do not feel like a grand mistake. Surviving his family, only to be sold into slavery. Surviving slavery, only to become a soldier. Surviving war, only to find that it would define the rest of his life. Surviving the rest of his life, only to find and in too few years lose the most important part of it all.

Hannibal lowers himself to sit on a low, flat boulder, wary of the caves that seem to promise shelter from the drizzling sky and misting surf. Yelp shakes himself off and plods back to Hannibal’s side, resting his heavy head on the man’s leg.

“I did right by Asherah,” Hannibal tells himself, a hand pressed to his eyes. “I did right by the horses. I did right by the gods,” he whispers, and his voice drips as cold and repetitive into his hand as the receding waves slicking back from the dripping rocks.

It is no comfort.

There can be no comfort here.

\---

 _Bratar_?

Hannibal stirs. The warmth at his side is not enough to stop him from shivering, but Hannibal curls closer around Yelp despite. When he fell asleep, he doesn’t know. For long he has been asleep, he doesn’t know. And just as he settles again, a little voice pierces through like a spear.

 _Bratar_!

His lips part, but he makes no sound. His lungs have been drained of air, no blood pulses beneath his skin, as motionless as the rock on which he rests. And at the sensation of a little hand pushing back his hair from his face, his tide rushes in and he sighs, trembling.

“Mischa.”

Her little laugh pulls his eyes open, he meets her wide-eyed gaze and buck-toothed smile. She claps her hands together and giggles again when Yelp noses against her cheek. Hannibal can only watch, searching up and down the beach for any signs of anyone else but it is only her, here, now. And when he takes her hand it feels warm and real in his own, and when he pulls her laughing against him she is heavy, and when he weeps silent and shuddering and she asks him in Neuri what’s wrong he has no answer but:

“I missed you.”

She missed him, too, she says, but there is no pain in her voice, no suffering. Her cheeks are rosy and bright, her pale hair curly and wild, she is no older than she was when Hannibal last saw her. He traces her face with careful fingers, uncertain of this or any reality, and she prods along the lines of his tattoos, eyes widening when she finds her name.

“For you,” Hannibal tells her, sitting cross legged to keep her in his lap. She tells him that’s silly and he smiles, aching, and does not burden her with the pain that he has carried for a lifetime. It doesn’t matter now.

“Why are you on the beach?” he asks, as patient Yelp rolls over panting beneath the little girl’s hands. She looks back at her brother, a thought creasing her brow, and tells him that they live in the caves, here. They have a farm inside, with other families, and she plays with another little girl whose name Hannibal distantly recalls.

They were not warriors or priests, and so they do not go to the Great Halls. They live, Hannibal imagines, much as they did before the slaughter. His people, long removed from one world, but taken up in another.

Hannibal looks back towards the cave and wonders at the expanse that lies within it, forests and rivers and valleys. Down the beach there are hundreds, thousands, countless, endless eternities for those who lived ordinary lives rather than exceptional ones. She asks if he will stay, she tells him that their parents have missed him, when he did not come with them here.

He dries his cheek before pressing it to her hair, and does not give her an answer.

She could come, he imagines. She could come with him as he goes to find his beloved, he could argue with _Veles_ that she should not have ever come here so young, that she was taken unfairly. And in doing so, he would lose, by that argument anyone who has ever died, did so too soon, he would seek to rip apart the threads of Fate itself and find no sympathy for the attempt.

He is not meant to be here, any more than she is meant to be elsewhere. The temptation tears at him, though, to go into the cave. To seek his family and tell them that he tried, he tried so hard to make them proud of him, and not let their memories vanish from the world in which they once lived. He could sit with them, for a time, and eat with them and reassure himself that they are contented, and he would make himself a knot in the tapestry of time where they have a seamless peace for as long as he had lived.

“I cannot stay,” he whispers, and her arms around his neck pull a childish sound from him that she soothes away with a kiss against his cheek. It is enough, it must be enough to know that they do not suffer here. It must be enough for him not to act in selfishness to force himself into a home that was not meant for him.

He lingers, though, for days or moments or months or weeks, as she plays with Yelp along the black sands. Watching as her clumsy, chubby legs give way and she falls with a laugh, grasping the sweet dog’s fur to stand again, only to be knocked down beneath the force of his affectionate nuzzling. Hannibal wonders at the eternities that could be spent seeking those he has known. He wonders at the lives he might have lead had their people not been broken to splinters, had he taken a wife and had children of his own, had she grown tall and proud and strong and just as fierce as he.

And when she stops her play and laughingly tells him that she has to go home for dinner, he stops her only long enough to hoist her to his hip and press kisses to her face until she squirms and giggles.

Hannibal tells Mischa that he loves her, and when she calls him brother and says she loves him, too, it is enough.

“ _Veles_ ,” he calls to the ceaseless waves, voice muffled into his palm. “I have wandered. I have sought. Take me to him.”

Across spires standing black from the waves, a voice carries chill across his skin.

_Will you not rest a while, here, if not in the halls of the slain?_

“I will not rest,” Hannibal answers, “until he is with me again.”

_He does not belong here. His gods have claimed him._

“Then let me go to him.”

 _You cannot return, if you do. You will not know peace as a favorite of the gods. You will not see your folk again. You would sacrifice all for which you have worked,_ bogatyr _, and you will be restless._

“As if I could rest without him,” Hannibal murmurs. “I would know no peace without my beloved.”

Hannibal thinks of Mischa, no longer in terror or pain, but laughing, happy.

Hannibal thinks of Will, lost and alone.

“I know what I sacrifice,” he says. “And I offer it all to you, in return for him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit about the gods and realms I drew from to write this chapter - a cohesion of Norse and Slavic myth:
> 
> [Svetovid](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svetovid) \- the all-seeing god of war, fertility, and divination  
> [Perun](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perun) \- the god of storms and horses  
> [Jarilo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jarilo) \- the god of vegetation and spring  
> [Yggdrasil](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yggdrasil) \- the tree that holds nine worlds in its branches; of note:  
> \- [Asgard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asgard) \- the world where Hannibal awakens  
> \- [Muspelheim](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muspelheim) \- the world of fire through which he passes  
> \- [Niflheim](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niflheim) \- the world in which Hannibal finds his family  
> [Hulder](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hulder) \- the cow-tailed woman seeking a husband  
> [Veles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veles_\(god\)) \- the god of the underworld


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“I feel adrift,” Will whispers. “I would seek him through every world and every time. I would honor my oath to him above all things.”_
> 
> _“Your oath?”_
> 
> _“To find him again.”_

Will can hear the ocean.

Where he lies on the soft grass, it’s close, perhaps several paces only, and the tide is in. It smells of salt and home, and for a moment Will wonders if he had merely gone for a walk, clearing his head late at night, and had fallen asleep on the rise. He has, before, many years ago when he had used the ocean as his escape from fears and his place to think.

Slowly, he pushes himself to sit up. The wind that catches his hair is warm, fragrant with summer grasses and pollen, and it tugs at his chiton enough for Will to fold it beneath his knees. And that, too, is familiar. One of his own, he knows; cloth worn soft with age, off-white and just long enough. He will need another soon. 

Will’s fingers splay and curl in the tunic before he raises his eyes to the sea, the Aegean spreading wide and lapis-blue before him. He knows this water. He trusts its hands. He thinks of his dogs bounding through it in their joy, thinks of Vih’r, quick to plunge into the surf and just as quickly race away, tail up and hooves beating the sand beneath her. He thinks of Hannibal learning to swim, following Will’s teasing play across the beach and -

Will turns his head, brows furrowed, and seeks behind himself. 

Just grasses there, open fields. He knows there are three, to circulate the horses and goats through in the summer months, to gather hay from for the winter ones. He knows their exact length and width, he knows how many horses graze and where. Will’s breath catches in his throat and he stumbles to his feet. He’s home.

He’s _home_.

Will takes one step, another, faster and faster until he is running, through the fields, still empty, perhaps too early in the morning yet to let the horses free, down the path and to the farm. There is smoke coming from the chimney, the back door is open, and Will finds it only by sheer intuition, he weeps too hard to see.

Within, the house is quiet, and Will wipes his eyes before running through the corridors to his chambers. They are empty. No hounds to bowl him over in greeting, no Asherah to tell him off for running in the house. Just the little paper animals he had made before he and Hannibal had gone to war. It seems so foreign, now, this peace. This quiet. Will closes the door, heart pounding in his throat, and makes his way back, steps slowed, now, towards the chambers he had shared with Hannibal.

Within, the windows are shuttered dark, all but one. The air is smoky, cloying sweetness of incense that Will remembers from the temples in the Agora. He takes a step and lets his eyes adjust. The bed is where it had been, made neatly and covered in a thick wolf pelt that Hannibal had given Will when they had found the beasts within themselves. Upon the small table rests a pitcher of sweet wine, beside it, two cups and dried flowers. Will swallows but doesn’t move to drink. He seeks, instead, for the one thing that will guarantee him Hannibal’s presence here.

He finds Hannibal’s panoply on its stand, beneath it an urn, elaborately decorated with images of war and hunting, wild horses and boars and wolves, creatures that Hannibal had had drawn on his skin, animals he had always carried with him, even, it seems, into death. Will’s jaw works and he feels the burn of tears behind his eyes again. Sharper, now, cruel as opposed to soothing. He looks at the urn for a long time before turning his eyes to the other stand beside Hannibal’s.

Upon it, rests his own panoply, polished clean and so much smaller than that of his husband. There is no cloak to hang behind it, no marks of rank. His shield rests beneath, upturned, and within it, too, another urn. Smaller. This decorated with seven dogs, a rearing horse. No scenes of battle, for Will’s afterlife. Just memories of a life not fully lived. Will turns from it and kneels before Hannibal’s instead. Close enough that he can reach for the urn, can rest his head against the cool clay.

He knows that he is dead, remembers the agony of finding Hannibal on the battle field. Remembers finding Yelp at his side, even then. He does not want to linger, there, in that cold and mud and blood. He does not want to think of Hannibal struck down and cloven in two. And so will forces his mind to soothing memories. Of early mornings and rough fingers against his skin. He thinks of murmuring Neuri together as they fixed the fences for the goats. He thinks of brushing horses. He thinks of Hannibal’s warm voice calling him _peacemaker_ and smiling.

“She has honored you both.”

Will jumps at the voice, body jerking back on reflex, back turning immediately to Hannibal’s panoply as though his lithe form could possibly protect it from harm. Before him stands a young woman, not much older than himself. Her dress is plain, just darker than her pale skin, her hair so black it appears almost blue, when she turns her head, Will could swear it is. But it is her eyes, deep as endless skies at night, filled with galaxies and light, that has Will’s heart slowing. She holds before her the dried wild flowers from the small table, and turns her head a little to look back into the house as though she and Will might disturb someone with their presence.

“Asherah,” she clarifies gently, turning back. “She has honored you both. Not once has she neglected the temple she has built for you. She brings fresh food and wine every day.”

“She should not have to,” Will replies after a moment. He watches the young woman incline her head, turn to the corridor once more, and takes his time to stand again. “Why am I here alone?”

“Because you have honored the Gods with your death,” she says, “and you have been allowed to walk eternal in the Elysian Fields.”

“Why am I here without him?” Will asks again, hands curled into gentle fists at his side as the young woman looks on.

“Because he has been claimed by others,” she tells him. “And he has found his own clear fields.”

Will’s breath breaks forth in a shudder and he brings a hand to his mouth to rub against his lips. It could not be, it could _not_ , that they would be so parted in death. Not after every dedication and every promise. Not after a love so strong Will can feel it tug against his very bones even now. He swallows back tears and drops his hand again, and sets his eyes to the flowers in her hands.

“You took them.”

“They are meant for me.”

“Did you die in battle also?” Will sneers, and he regrets it. A cruelty she does not deserve - he does not even know who she is. But the woman seems hardly offended, and turns a smile to the flowers instead of the petulant and upset boy before her.

“I was summoned,” she says, "by the woman of the house who has been one of the few to leave me offerings in her many years here. By the woman who mourns you both, and has held onto me as Pandora once had, in her box, since she was a child.”

Will blinks, watches as before his eyes the dried flowers grow lush and alive once more, and the young woman looks up. He had never expected to see Hope, when his heart had all but abandoned it. Apparently, Asherah had made sure that Hope never abandoned him.

“Elpis,” he murmurs, and with a wider smile she inclines her head again.

“I didn’t think you would know me.”

“I didn’t think you would, me,” Will admits, turning to look at the panoply once more, Hannibal’s, not his own. “I did not think I would be worthy of a personal visit.”

“Few Greeks have faith in me,” Elpis says, taking a step closer. “Fewer still take time to seek for me. But those that do, do not find their calls unanswered.”

“Can you help me find him?” Will’s voice is little, almost weak, and he reaches to run his fingers over the chest piece, catching on every dent and fresh mark that war had left upon it. He lingers on the deepest, the one that had near-split in two from the blow of a Persian’s sword. Will retracts his fingers without touching that. The memory alone burns him.

“I don’t know where he is,” the Goddess replies, and Will finds that all he can do is laugh, helpless and childish, and finds that once he starts, he cannot stop. Laughter become hiccups, those become a cough, and then Will is sobbing and shaking, wrists pressed to his eyes until one hand seeks back and he stumbles and drops onto the bed, curling up against the pelt as his tears pull free of him, rend his heart apart, his bones, his body. He cannot breathe.

And it is then, that Elpis comes near, and sets her palm against Will’s forehead, soothing the fever of his agony away. Stroke after stroke, gentle and sure, she cards her fingers through Will’s wayward curls until his breathing eases, until he opens his eyes and raises them to her once more. There is a strange feeling of familiarity with her near. Will wonders if she resembles his mother, he can barely remember her. He wonders if in all his childish dreams and wishes, he had seen her when he had begged for hope as well.

“Will you not let him rest?” She asks him gently, and Will brings a hand up to smear the tears from beneath his eyes. Slowly, he pushes to sit, and Elpis adjusts her tunic to sit beside him as he does.

“Would that I could rest with him,” Will says softly. “I had hoped - we had -” Will bites his lip and holds it, a gentle sigh before he lets it go, shakes his head and rubs his eyes again. “We are sworn to each other, beneath the skies, his Gods and mine. I would that I could find my husband in the afterlife, and find our deserved peace together.”

Elpis considers his words, the flowers shifting with a whisper as she sets them to the table once more, and Will watches them gently whither to dryness again.

“You are a rare young boy to be allowed into the Fields, Will,” she tells him gently. “A rare one on whose behalf Hecate had spoken to Persephone while you stood alone in Erebus, to allow you the rest of Elysium and not the witlessness of the Asphodel Meadows. Your death was not only in battle, but it was in defense of your home, in defense of your husband and your people. There is honor in that, Will. There should be peace in it as well.”

Will laughs, a dry and soft thing, and shakes his head. “I cannot have peace without him.”

Elpis purses her lips, not in anger but in empathy, the boy before her quiet and still once more. Will turns his head only to see the armor, only to look at Hannibal’s urn. He would, if he could, return to any level of Hades to become one with the ashes of Hannibal within that little space. If that was all they had together, Will would want nothing else.

“I feel adrift,” Will whispers. “I would seek him through every world and every time. I would honor my oath to him above all things.”

“Your oath?”

“To find him again.”

A moment more of silence between them, and then the Goddess stands, hands elegant against her tunic, smile small when she presses her fingers to it.

“Then you will find him.”

Will laughs again, but this time he does not descend into tears, he has cried himself dry. “I hope,” he sighs instead.

“I know,” she replies, and when Will raises his eyes to her again, she is gone, and the flowers on the table beside him bloom once more.

\---

Time does not make sense in Elysium, there seems to be no night in the Fields, and Will sees no one else with him within them. Perhaps each person granted their free will here had only their own little place to live in, their own little peace within the endless walls of the underworld. He takes his time to see the house and finds it still empty. There is food laid out on the table, and milk in pitches on the counter. A bath is drawn for someone but no one is there. He wonders if perhaps his life here has stopped, at a standstill, until Hannibal is with him again.

Will leaves the house for the stables.

Here, it is as he remembers. Wooden stalls and fresh straw, the lingering smell of horses and the barest of dogs. Will could laugh for it, and though they are empty, he steps close to touch against the sanded wood supports, curls his fingers around it and presses his forehead to the wood. He thinks of Hannibal, here, brushing the horses and talking to them. Every one of them with a name, every one of them known and touched and loved.

Like kin.

Will releases a harsh sigh and gently slaps his palm against the pole in frustration, and to his left, at the far, far end of the stables, a horse snorts its displeasure at being so disturbed.

Will freezes, eyes wide and hands spread, panic and hope coiling in his belly all at once as he turns and gently sets his foot down to walk towards the sound. Slowly, so as not to spook, so as not to agitate, Will makes his way to the end of the stables, and turns to the closed stall that holds the only horse, the only living thing, that is with him in this heaven.

With a snort, a pink-white nose pokes over the top of the stall, Beli just tall enough, now, to reach and look over, and Will laughs, delighted and relieved, before pressing his palm against the smooth pink nostrils.

“Beautiful boy,” he breathes. “Beautiful wild boy, do you know me?”

Beli seeks, when Will opens the door, nuzzles against Will’s hand and rubs his head rough against Will’s chest as he steps closer. He remembers. He knows the boy who had named him, who had helped bring him to the world, who had dedicated him to the God he belongs to. Will sweeps the messy fringe from the yearling’s forehead and scratches behind his ears, murmuring to him in Neuri, praising and coddling him, apologizing and soothing him.

The little horse does not kick out, he does not leave to run into the field as Will gives him leave to, he stays at Will’s side and gently nudges him to walk first, when Will shows no sign of moving at all.

 _That horse is not of our realm, he is between_ , Elpis whispers, though Will does not see her. The voice feels as though it comes from his own mind, warm and reassuring, and he listens. _He belongs to another that can see all of the World. He has free rein to go between one and another. Perhaps he will find him._

“I hope,” Will murmurs, and follows as Beli passes him through the doors of the stables and leads him out into the green pastures beyond. He does not linger, not to roll in the dust or pick at the grass, he walks with a steady gait past the farm and towards the sea once more, and Will follows.

He thinks of Hannibal’s words, of his surprise and delight at seeing this little horse born, he thinks of how Hannibal had prayed, how he had given offering and tribute, how he had spoken dedications and promises, how he had seen the horse as the best and safest omen. He thinks of how, for a time, that horse had prevented war.

A horse belonging to the God who could see all. A horse that did not belong in one realm or another, but who wandered free between them. Will thinks of the times he and Hannibal had panicked, not finding the little foal in the fields with his mother, only to find him, hours later, rubbing against the rough bark of a tree nearby, as though he was never lost at all, and smiles.

“You have always wandered,” Will tells the horse, and gets only an impatient flick of white tail in reply.

The ocean looms again, and it takes Will’s breath away. It is so vast and empty, so welcoming and warm. He knows it intimately, he misses it with an ache he cannot soothe away. Perhaps another time. Perhaps when he can teach Hannibal to swim again, and have his husband catch him in the water, around the waist, and pull him close.

“When you find him, bring him home,” Will tells the horse, and Beli turns to nudge against Will once more, a reassurance and comfort both, letting the boy touch him and whisper, kiss between his wide blue eyes and let him free. Will watches Beli canter into the water, watches him take to it as any of his hounds would, watches until he melds with the surf, just as white and intangible as foam, and then he’s gone.

\---

 _Death is merciless and indiscriminate,_ Elpis whispers, and Will hugs his cloak around himself as he trudges onwards through yet another forest. He does not seem to tire. He does not seem to feel time. _Death cannot be argued with, nor negotiated against, but he can be outsmarted._

“I am not so clever,” Will says, raising his eyes to the sky and finding it, as always, clear and blue, warm, with just a hint of the chance of rain.

 _My brother thinks himself to be,_ Elpis continues, _but Thanatos has his weaknesses, he has his whimsy and his ego. And he cannot take a soul that has not completed its journey, he has no right._

“I have no right to argue with when Atropos chooses to cut my thread,” Will counters. Before him, he sees the first beginnings of the mountains, the gentle rises that so quickly would turn to merciless peaks and sharp rocks. He thanks whatever deities are watching that he does not have to cross them. Just reach them.

 _You also have an oath to keep to your husband,_ Elpis insists, _to find him and to be with him. A man with a broken oath cannot remain in Elysium. Horkos would not allow it._

“Then should I seek him?”

 _Seek my brother,_ Elpis says, _then pledge your fate to Horkos. Your soul will be released to him if it is found that your oath is broken. If you prove you seek to fulfill it, you will have nothing tethering you here as you go to do it. You can leave to seek him, and neither Thanatos, nor Horkos, nor Hades himself will have a claim on your return then, if you find him._

Will sighs, and continues on. There is no fear in his heart, now, of death beyond death, there is only a flame of hope burning deep within him that pushes him onwards, pushes him through fields and marshes, through days and days, until he reaches the cave Elpis had told him first to seek.

 _Within, a guide,_ she had said, _who can take you to Thanatos in the underworld. She knows your name. She spoke for you, once, she may again._

Will regards the cave and carefully drops to his knees before it. He should be tired. He should be falling apart and asleep and away, but he does nothing but wait, nothing but sit.

He thinks of Hannibal.

He thinks of feeding him sticky pomegranate seeds from his fingers, and peeling figs at the table. He thinks of how Hannibal had carried Yelp around beneath the dog’s front legs, he thinks of the joy the puppy had felt to be finally accepted by the person he had claimed as his own. Will thinks of late nights talking and chasing each other through the fields. He thinks of the first time he had pinned down Hannibal in training, and how proud he had been, and despite his smile, Will brings a hand up to wipe his tears away.

He misses him.

He aches.

And he will meet every creature in Tartarus should he have to, to find him again.

When the old witch approaches Will, hours, days, weeks later, his mind is clear, and his eyes are dry. He accepts her cup of water and drinks it slowly, sating his thirst and filling his belly. When he stands before her, he is taller, and ducks his head in deference when she asks him what he seeks.

“I have an oath I have not fulfilled,” Will tells her. “I would present my argument and pleas to Thanatos for his wisdom, and Horkos for his mercy. Please, will you guide me back through the Asphodel Meadows, through Erebus, to allow me to make my peace?”

She considers the boy before her, a man, in the eyes of society, in the eyes of the Gods, and in more ways than age. He is brave, he is resolved and strong, and Hecate can feel the burn of his fire, the pull of his ache, and the determination and controls both and does not let them consume him.

“You will not see Elysium again,” she warns him setting a hand beneath his chin to lift it to her, "if I lead you from it now.”

Will smiles, gentle, and raises his eyes.

“For him, I would walk through any fire,” he whispers, “and I would give up any fields.”

His words hang between them, considered, gifted, an oath in and of itself that the boy is proving he can fulfill. Despite his fear, despite his pain, despite the promise of peace and safety here. Hecate draws a finger against Will’s cheek, presses it softly against his lips, and then sets her cool palm against Will’s eyes as he takes a breath and darkness takes them both.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some cool links for anyone interested:  
> [Elysium](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elysium). (Likewise, [the Asphodel Meadows](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asphodel_Meadows), [Erebus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erebus) and [Tartarus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tartarus))  
> [Elpis](http://www.greekmythology.com/Other_Gods/Minor_Gods/Elpis/elpis.html), [Hecate](http://www.greekmythology.com/Other_Gods/Hecate/hecate.html), [Horkos](http://www.greekmythology.com/Other_Gods/Minor_Gods/Horkos/horkos.html) and [Thanatos](http://www.greekmythology.com/Other_Gods/Thanatos/thanatos.html)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His armor, grey with age and rent near in two from shoulder to sternum, stands waiting for him. Beside it a newer set, punctured through the side, still glistening bronze along the coils and filigrees curving beautiful.
> 
> It would be enough to stop Hannibal's heart, were it capable of stopping.
> 
> It would be enough to pull his voice to an agony that might rend the veil itself.
> 
> It would be enough, if not for the curled form lying beneath a wolf’s pelt upon his bed.

Hannibal knows where he is not by the land, but by the scent the wind carries.

A deep breath holds in the salt of sea and the rich earthiness of horses. A layer beneath holds ripe fruit, olives and figs, that have fallen to the soil and been opened by birds and hares. Hay, half-harvested in late summer, shoots a vegetal tanginess throughout.

How long it’s been, how far he’s come - even if he recalled it all, impossible now, he would not be able to voice his journey. Aeons, perhaps. Days. It doesn’t matter now, when the sameness of time began to section itself apart, and the world located central on his tree opened itself to him once more. He experienced dawn and dusk, night and day. Aware of hot and cold, he was little affected by the weather, clad always in his chiton that never tarnished or gathered dirt.

And none of the centuries, weeks, ages, hours that passed could have steadied him for the sensation that now forces him to rest a hand against an olive tree.

 _Home_.

Yelp runs ahead, wheezing and wagging in tandem, his voice ever-broken but his tail far from it, slinging back and forth hard enough to send him askew against the soil. He rolls and sends up clouds of dust from the empty patch he’s found, but his coat is clean when he stands and barrels onward down the long hill towards the house.

Hannibal follows, and crouches by the training circle. None of Yelp’s gyrations have stirred the earth, and he reaches with a finger to draw a line through the faded chalk outline. It does not change, and Hannibal hums in thought.

There is an immediate response from the dogs when Yelp sets his huge feet to the kitchen door and whines. Scratching and yelping and squirming, and Hannibal is astounded, once more, by the intuition these animals have, sensing what cannot be seen, feeling what may not be there.

He leaves Yelp where he stands, scratching at the door and leaving no marks against it, clamoring to get close to his kin again, and goes silently towards the fields. Upon them, the horses graze, and Hannibal counts eleven animals. He feels his heart speed as he seeks out for his own mare. She is at the far end of the larger field, picking at the grass that grows long from the summer months.

She looks much the same, same dark hair and long untamed mane, soft nose and white socks against her feet. She moves with grace, but slower, older, and Hannibal’s breath catches seeing her here. She had come home, deserved and earned her peace here. Without thinking he whistles, and watches as she merely steps to another patch of grass and continues her quiet grazing. He is unheard, unseen, and strangely, that is enough for him. To see her safe, to know she made it home unharmed.

He looks for Vih’r next, and does not find her, not here. Behind him, the house opens up and the dogs barrel through, but he does not turn to them, he seeks in the stables instead.

They are quiet, empty for the day, and Hannibal allows himself to breathe in their familiarity, hours worked here, with the horses when he had first brought them home, feeding and tending to them, brushing out tangles and cutting away those he could not. He had slept in here, at first, getting the animals used to him, getting them to trust him when he approached, to know that he would not raise his hand to harm, but to stroke, to feed and gentle them.

It had taken months. He had lost several. But he had taken them all back with him, every single one.

“Hannibal!”

He turns, fast enough that his heart leaps to his throat and looks, watches as Asherah walks towards him. Taller, now, beautiful, always. Her hair is streaked with grey, now, at her temples and woven through her long plait. She has not grown heavyset with age, she has flourished, and Hannibal steps closer, hands outstretched to greet her as she nears.

“Get away from the foals, you awful boy, I’ve told you before.”

If Hannibal had been breathing, his breath catches then and holds, and as he turns slowly to look within the stables again, he sees a head of messy hair, filled with straw and dust, pop up from behind the last stall, eyes dark as Hannibal’s are, hair curled as Will’s is. No older than seven, and grinning bright.

“But they are so little!” he calls, turns back into the stall again, as Asherah - his mother - walks briskly to him to pull him away.

“They are too little, Hannibal, I’ve told you. They need a few more weeks before you can touch them. Let Vih’r take care of her own.”

“I’m little too,” he argues, and Hannibal - the elder of that name - sees the promise of a smile fought down in the corner of her mouth as she hoists him to her hip.

“You are,” she agrees, carrying him back out from the stable, picking the hay from his hair. “Which means you should listen to me. I’m much bigger than you.”

“Not much.”

“Your father?” she challenges, and the boy laughs into her shoulder. “I thought so. He’ll be home from the agora tonight. Until then, I’m in charge. Now go,” she tells him, setting little sandaled feet to the earth and giving him a swat. “Find your sisters.”

She is beautiful. Fierce and clever, proud and headstrong. Hannibal watches as the boy stumbles off at a full gallop, calling a string of names that pulls a laugh from the older man. For a moment, he thinks she hears him. She tilts her head just so, towards the wind, and her eyes narrow in thought.

Hannibal swallows, hard enough that it hurts even in a realm that has no pain.

“I’ve missed you,” he tells her, and as she hums and continues back towards the house, he hopes she knows. She hears. She feels somewhere inside herself his words and the weight they carry, how he has worried for her, feared for her in the war and its aftermath.

And how his heart sings to see her running the house that has always been hers and now truly is. The screams and laughter of children carry from across the field, and Hannibal closes his eyes to let the sound ease his heart from its painful pulse against his ribs. He ducks his head back to the stall beside himself, and the roan-and-white foal nursing beneath Vih’r. Hers, and to carry such light across his fur, Beli as the sire.

Beli, who Hannibal does not see in field or in the barn.

Him, he does not look for. Beli always came and went with his own winds and tides. He was never a horse of this world to begin with. He praises Vih’r for her strong foal, watches the way her tiny tail twitches as she nuzzles her mother for milk. Three days, perhaps four, on her feet.

Hannibal draws a hand over Vih’r’s nose, gentle, as Will always touched, and smiles when she shakes her head, ducks it and lifts it again. She cannot see him, but this is enough. So Hannibal leaves them be.

Outside, the house has awoken, there is activity around the goat pen - more new fences, though these, Hannibal sees, are stronger, taller. He smiles, wondering who had built them, and who will have to rebuild them once these, too, are chewed through. Some slaves he recognizes, working in the garden or cleaning the kennels. He does not see his own dogs. And in truth, he had not expected to. Enough time had passed, with new summers and new winters, new foals and new children, that his dogs had gone their own way, retired, as Hannibal had been, but in their own time.

He greets Yelp with a rough hand against his muzzle, kneeling and pulling the big dog close against him until all his lanky limbs are curled up in Hannibal’s lap as though Yelp were still a pup.

“They’ve done well,” Hannibal tells him, rubbing behind Yelp’s ears roughly until the dog wheezes his pleasure. “They’ve given the farm the life it deserves.”

There is a lingering weight of nostalgia here, a place he knows so intimately, a place that he had kept that is no longer his own, and yet it is not much changed. Asherah had run the household as she had before Hannibal and Will had left it, and she runs it now, as efficiently as any speaker commands a room. He wonders, with a smile, which man she had finally chosen as her husband and is pleased, at least, that he is worthy of her.

She always knew her worth.

He makes his way to the house, his heart skipping in a single misstep as he passes through the open door. There are many possibilities that appeal to him suddenly, timeless and ageless. He will watch the children play, see them grow as clever as their mother alongside horses they will learn to ride. He will see them become as bold as their father, a man of strength in body and heart, compassionate and brave. Hannibal recognizes his panoply in the study as he passes by, a friend known from Marathon and after, who shared the field with him when he died.

He had wondered, often, why he had insisted on going off to the kitchen when they were meant to be drinking together. A smile spreads wide as Hannibal recalls the time he returned from the kitchen with a black eye and a smile.

There is a blessing, at least, in that despite not being heard or seen, he can still feel. The clay walls are rough against his fingers, the floor cool. Each sensation sparks almost painfully in him after so long apart from anything recognizable, anything real. The scent of Asherah’s cooking is enough to dizzy the man, who holds his breath long enough that he forgets to ever release it.

Yelp meets him in the sitting room, having circled around to the front door. Hannibal grins to see him and ducks, patting his thighs, but Yelp stands still. A paw lifts in alert and he huffs a single low breath. What things exist in the in-between, Hannibal can only recall from distant memories. There are shades far worse than simple soldiers returning home again; there are wights more dangerous than women with cow’s tails. He holds his position until suddenly Yelp surges forward, taking a corner in the hallway so fast his hip bangs the wall.

Hannibal follows, around the bend, past the study once more. Past Will’s bedroom where still several of the dogs pile lazy in the late afternoon sun, to his own room.

His armor, grey with age and rent near in two from shoulder to sternum, stands waiting for him. Beside it a newer set, punctured through the side, still glistening bronze along the coils and filigrees curving beautiful.

It would be enough to stop his heart, were it capable of stopping.

It would be enough to pull his voice to an agony that might rend the veil itself.

It would be enough, if not for the curled form lying beneath a wolf’s pelt upon his bed.

Small breaths, in and out in sleep, a messy mop of curls, above the fur. When Yelp noses against him, a hand seeks out to touch, a gentle sound as small feet stretch from beneath the pelt, toes splaying and relaxing again. Hannibal watches Will unfurl, awaken, as beautiful as the last moment he remembers seeing him, as fierce, as strong. Will’s eyes open just enough to see which dog has come to visit him and then open wider, lips parting on a cry of joy as he bends to wrap his arms around Yelp’s thick neck.

“Stupid dog,” he whispers, “stupid boy. My stupid boy.”

Yelp’s tail slaps the bed, the table beside it, yet nothing upends, nothing is upset. Will holds to the dog until Yelp starts to wriggle free, and only then does he sit up, only then does he turn his bright eyes to Hannibal and look at him.

“You’re here,” he whispers, barely loud enough to hear, but it is loud enough, and as Hannibal takes a step, Will pushes from the bed and meets him, arms around broad shoulders, standing on his toes to reach. Will nuzzles into Hannibal’s shoulder, in the hand that presses against the back of his head and sobs, tears pressing from between his eyelids even as he starts to laugh, bright and clear and perfect.

“I would have waited aeons,” he breathes. “I would have crossed every world on foot to find you again.”

Hannibal squeezes Will tighter, to stop his own shaking, to feel breath and weight and warmth against him. This breath. This weight. This warmth.

His Will.

His peacemaker.

For a man who even in death stands so tall, so strong and proud, he weakens. Gods could not unsteady him. Frightening worlds and the spaces between them could not dissuade him. The greatest temptation he could have ever imagined to pull him from his course did not, and it is only beneath these thin arms that he finally bends.

He sits back slowly, right there on the floor, and buries his nose in Will’s hair to breathe in the scent of figs and oils, and sweetness, springtime sweetness bursting into bloom as it always has, as it always will. His throat clicks, and a breath hitches so hard in the unshakeable man that his shoulders heave with it.

“I did,” he whispers, a pull of laughter snaring in his throat, “through nine worlds. I told the gods to damn themselves, damn their paradise. It -”

Hannibal shudders, and he swallows back a sob, setting his jaw and squeezing Will as tightly as he can.

“There can be no peace without you.”

Will holds him just as tightly, just as fiercely, fingers gathering Hannibal’s tunic and tugging the fabric. He will not let him go, he cannot. His own breathing shudders, body tense and trembling, and Will leans back, just enough, just far enough to press his lips to Hannibal’s and feel them part beneath his own.

Ages and millennia, an eternity between the last time he had felt Hannibal sigh against him this way, the last time he felt a rough hand move to cup his cheek and hold him close. As tight as they hold each other, their kiss is gentle, a breathless pressing of lips to lips to remember and remind, forgive and adore. Will kisses until his lips split into a grin and he laughs, tears still streaking his cheeks as he brings a hand up to wipe them away and leans in to kiss Hannibal deeper.

“I went to Hades,” Will whispers between kisses, laughing as he sobs, as he holds Hannibal close. “I met the children of Nyx. I said I would face any depths of Tartarus if I did not fulfill my oath to you, and they let me try.”

Will kisses him again, presses closer, enough for Hannibal to lean back and rest against the floor, enough for Will to lie atop him, still kissing, still touching and nuzzling into him.

“I found you,” he says. “I found you because I promised I would. I would find you in any realm, in any time, and I would never regret the journey.” Will trembles harder against him and holds Hannibal close, fingers laced against the fabric at Hannibal’s chest, head ducked so Hannibal can run his fingers through his hair, long, still, and out of its braid.

“I love you,” he sighs. “I love you.”

Hannibal shudders, beneath the weight of Will’s words, the oaths that have held them together through times and places incomprehensible. He grasps Will’s hair in his fingers and tugs just enough to see his face, eyes bright as the sea and a smile headier than any wine.

“Again,” he asks, and Will’s grin parts wide over broad teeth. Hannibal watches him shape the words with a mouth that is his to hear and kiss forever, now, a forever they have claimed.

“I love you.”

“Again.”

“I love you,” laughs Will, and Hannibal’s own laugh joins his before they tangle in another kiss.

“I love you,” Hannibal breathes, lips still touching, noses pressed alongside the other. “I love you always.”

He releases Will’s hair, shaking fingers smoothing it from his face. He traces fine cheekbones and his strong jaw, follows the curves of his mouth and the long bridge of his nose. Down the curve of his neck to the horse long ago etched into his skin, and where his fingers traveled, so do Hannibal’s kisses, to feel every inch of Will’s softness against him.

“How?” Hannibal finally asks. “How did it happen?”

Will turns into every touch, seeks all of them and smiles at the gentleness between them, so long missed. With a sigh, he sets his knees on either side of Hannibal and comfortably straddles him as strong hands stroke over his back, through his hair, over his face, again and again.

“I was cold,” Will tells him, voice gentle. His death had not been painful but for the grief of watching Hannibal’s pyre burn, watching him leave Will behind. He turns a kiss against Hannibal’s cheek, now, a reassurance and a comfort both. “My wound no longer bled and I curled under a tree to sleep. I was so tired,” Will sighs, presses a kiss to Hannibal’s throat, next. “I missed you terribly.”

Hannibal twists a curl of hair behind Will’s ear, and closes his eyes. Neither stop touching, neither can, not when every brush of skin or lips sends shivers over their skin, sparking sensation after too long numb. He imagines his boy, cold and alone in his grief, and wraps his arms around him fully again.

“I saw you take the arrow, from across the field. I saw you pull it from your side and lean against your shield. You were brave,” he tells him, “fearless. But I was not. I feared for you, then, and when I turned to get to you -”

His chest tightens, and he shakes his head. A breath of laughter, bitterly soft, lets him breathe again.

“For all the times I chastened you not to be distracted, I did not heed my own words.” Hannibal tilts his head, blinking dark eyes as he searches between Will’s, his long lashes and the cloudless, sunlit blue behind them. “I’m sorry,” Hannibal whispers.

Will makes a sound, gentle, and his brows furrow just enough for Hannibal to see the pain there. But no blame, never blame. Will watches Hannibal a moment more before setting a little hand against Hannibal’s cheek and leaning in once more to kiss him. Familiar lips and gentle touches, his boy in the mornings and late at night, catching Hannibal in the kitchen to steal a kiss and waiting for him obediently to greet him when guests visited the farm.

His boy.

His husband.

His peacemaker.

“Snow found you in the field,” Will whispers, his own confession, his eyes down and away in shame. “I would have walked past. I didn’t look. I nearly lost you there, when I had promised I never would.” It is an agony that has started to ease only now, only with Hannibal in his arms again, here, on their farm, in a place no one can touch them. He accepts the gentle fingers against his face, beneath his eyes to sweep more tears away, and after a moment he smiles, bites his lip.

“Beli found you by the sea,” he says. “He found you but you did not see him, you saw nothing but the road before you. But Yelp did.”

Hannibal feels his heart quicken, or a sensation near enough to it in this in-between, at the thought of his journey. Even the thought that he might attempt to envision the paths he took sends a tense flicker of alarm through the man, some ancient fear of the unknown endlessness of the void. It is incomprehensible when they are here like this, the world made small once more, close and warm as hearthfire.

“I remember,” he says. “I think. I remember him playing in the sea, splashing in the foam. I could not see anything. Not then, or any other time. The giants made me hunt for them in order to pass, and so I did. Yelp was so swift. The wights toyed with me, but did not delay me,” he recalls, hiding the trembling of his hands, suddenly cold, against Will’s skin, hitching his chiton higher to press his palms to the small of Will’s back. “There was a milkmaid with a cow’s tail, entirely beautiful, seeking a husband. Even she did not stop me.”

A pause, brows knitting.

“I saw my family,” he says. “They are content.”

Will’s breath seeps warm over Hannibal’s chest in relief. He does not say anything about his own - he did not see his father in Elysium, he did not stay long in the Asphodel Meadows to find him there. He holds onto hope, always hope, that perhaps he has not yet found his way to the end of his life. Perhaps Will would yet see him again.

“And you did not stay with them?” Will asks softly.

“For a time,” he admits. “My sister and I - we sat on the misty beach together. The sand is black there, the rocks around it too. Sea and sky are grey. It is nothing like the ocean here. But she - she was just the same as she was, before. She played with Yelp along the shore, and I told her stories.”

Each stroke of fingers through Will’s hair, curls looping soft as spun wool, eases the primal fear that pulled his heart too fast. He leaves his other hand against Will’s back, matching his own breath to the steady rise and fall of his peacemaker.

“Had I stayed, I would not have left again. Imagine then how driven you would have been to see your oath through,” he muses. “Transcending your world into mine. Appearing angrily on the beach and shouting my name into every cave.”

“I shouted it from Elysium,” Will tells him, smiling wide. “Over the ocean until my throat grew raw, and my voice hoarse because I knew you would hear me.”

Will watches Hannibal, he takes him in, same soft and warm expression, same gentle eyes and gentle hands, same broad chest and beating heart beneath. No longer does Will allow himself the memory of Hannibal’s skin cold, of his eyes pressed closed and his skin smeared in blood. That is no longer him, that is no longer them. They have earned their right to be outside of that, of pain and terror and age.

“Perhaps one day we will find our way back to them,” Will says, moving to push up from Hannibal, to hold out his hand for his General to take. He smiles when Hannibal sits up and kisses his stomach instead, soft worshipful things as his hands spread around Will’s sides to gently hold him still.

The woven linen that drapes delicate with age catches against Hannibal’s fingers as he spreads them upward. He reveals Will not for prurient interest, hardly even for passion, but to seek the warmth of Will’s body, alive and whole. Neither bleed here, baring bone and flesh from the savagery of others. Neither will again. But no sword has ever been so skilled as to sever love, no army vast enough, no leader skilled enough to kill what lives between them.

Hannibal lifts his eyes, and holding Will’s chiton against his hips, he nuzzles Will’s bare belly and curls his lips against it in a lingering kiss. Another, then, when it twitches tickled and Will laughs. Another when little fingers find his hair to work it free from its braid, tugging loose the long strands of grey.

“And you,” Hannibal whispers, pressing his mouth to the hollow of Will’s hip. “Arguing with the gods themselves. I should have known you might. Stubborn as an unbroken horse,” he breathes, smiling, and touches his teeth to Will’s sharp hipbone just to feel its solidity. “Except to me. A claim not even the gods can make.”

Will smiles, bright and delighted, and brings his hands down to gently peel the chiton from his body, let it drop to the floor.

“No,” Will agrees, resting his hand under Hannibal’s chin to lift it. No one else can claim him, no one else ever would. He had stood before Thanatos and pledged his soul to another deity, he had faced down Horkos and promised him, as he watched his soul slither silver and ethereal between his lips, that he would fulfil his oath or owe him his eternal life for breaking it.

He had not broken it.

He owes no one anything, now, but himself and his general an eternity of peace together.

“Lay with me,” Will asks him softly, and Hannibal kisses his chest before wrapping strong arms around his boy and standing to carry him to bed.

\---

The house is alive in the eveningtime, and Will listens to the children run and laugh together as their mother chastens them quietly to be gentler. Yelp has gone to sleep with the dogs in the kennel, seemingly uncaring for the fact that they can not see or smell him, caring only that he could curl up with his brothers again, rest his head atop Riot’s tail and his back legs against Swift. His fur is darker than theirs, now, not having aged as they have.

Will listens as one of the girls runs back to her room - Will’s room - and in broken Neuri tells her brother that she will bring him back what he asked her to get.

Hannibal and Will had spent the day entwined, relearning each other’s bodies, touching and kissing and seeking once more. They have this, now, forever. Each other, now, forever. They had whispered about the children, Hannibal pressing his tears of pride, of wonder, against Will’s chest as Asherah had called them all together again. Althea and Elpis, and the twins Hannibal and Mischa. They had watched people pass the door, come and go, no one looking in but always passing their hands against the doorframe, as though to greet them silently regardless.

They had slept.

Now, Will wakes as Hannibal does not, and watches as the house sinks slowly into comfort. The children’s father arrives home to shrieks of joy and loud barking from the hounds outside. The family is boisterous and happy, a family like one Hannibal and Will would have had, had they the chance. Will feels the same pride, the same honor, in knowing that Asherah had it for them.

He stays awake as they eat dinner and speak about their days, he stays awake as the lights are dimmed one by one and everyone is sent to bed. He stays awake as Asherah comes into the room with a candle, hair undone down her back now, body tired from a day wrangling children and working her farm. He watches as she approaches their panoplies, touching her fingers to her lips before pressing them to Hannibal’s chest piece, crouching to do the same to the urn. She greets Will’s in just the same way, spends a moment gently brushing dust from one of the elaborate curls in the bronze.

When she steps back, she is quiet, meditative, and Will allows himself to take her in and truly see her again. The woman who had pulled him through his fear as a child, who had helped him become a man. The woman who had never, not once, let Hope forget him or forsake him.

“Good night, boys,” she says, turning and pausing for just a moment to look at the bed, to her eyes still made and neat and untouched. Something curls her lips, a gentling, a softening, before she ducks her head to blow out the candle.

“Perhaps I can finally sleep,” she murmurs into the dark, making her way to the open door again. “Now that everyone is home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to [Dweeby](http://dweeby.tumblr.com/) for the little prompt that launched forty-three chapters, several wars, and a love that spans the ages.
> 
> Thank you to [Noodle](http://noodletheelephant.tumblr.com/) for your keen eyes and much-needed feedback.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who has read, shared, commented, kudos'd, liked, and fell in love with these two as hard as we did. We would not push so hard if not for your boundless support. Our love to our readers, always. <3

**Author's Note:**

> Aiónios: age-long, and therefore: practically eternal, unending.


End file.
